* What is it? * It is a bitter state of indirect conflict that existed between the U.S. and the Soviet Union for more than four decades * Occurred from 1949 to 1989 * Why is it called a “ cold war ” ? * Hot war is when there is actual fighting * The cold war there was no direct fighting between the U.S. and the Soviet Union

* U.S. is upset that the Soviet Union Set up a non-aggression pact with Germany * The two superpowers did not trust each other. They were allies because they had a common enemy—Germany, not because they agreed on most things. * Stalin believed Britain and the USA delayed opening a second front in World War II so that the Soviets would suffer greater casualties, and be left too weak to threaten the West after the war.

* When German armies invaded Russia in June 1941, then Senator Truman was quoted in the press as having said, “If we see Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany and that way let them kill as many as possible....”

* U.S. asked Britain for help on the A-bomb and left the Soviets out. * Read the 2 Documents about when Truman told Stalin about the Atomic Bomb. * Write the answers to the following questions in your notebook: * Should the US have told the Soviets about the atomic bomb sooner? Why or why not? * Did Truman go about telling Stalin about the A- bomb in the right way? If yes, then why? If no then what should he have done instead?

* As WWII ended, Soviet leaders became concerned about security. * Germany had invaded Russia twice in less than 30 years. * The Soviets wanted to keep Germany weak and make sure that the countries between Germany and the Soviet Union were under Soviet control.

* The USA was a capitalist country, whereas the USSR was a communist country. These countries had very different beliefs. * Capitalism: Where all factors of production (industry, business and agriculture) are owned by private individuals or firms who run them for their own profit. * Communism: Where all factors of production (industry, business and agriculture) are owned by the state for the good of everyone.

* Stalin, the leader of the USSR, felt that the West wanted to see communism destroyed. He thought that the West didn’t appreciate the Soviet sacrifices that helped defeat the Nazis in World War II. * The USA thought the USSR was determined to encourage communist revolutions in other countries, and was worried about communism spreading across the world. This was seen as a dangerous threat to the governments and economies in the West.

* Two unofficial declarations of war * On February 9, 1946, Stalin said in a speech that the contradictions of capitalism would tear the capitalists countries apart and communism would become the reigning system in the world. In the speech Stalin implied that future wars were inevitable until communism was triumphant over communism * In March 1946 Winston Churchill gave a speech where he said that there was an Iron Curtain that has descended on Europe

* From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.